I thought April presented impediments to training when I mentioned those before, but that was merely a prelude to a real education in impediments, apparently. Since then, the weather has been absolutely spectacular, like dying to be outside every moment of the day in which you find yourself trapped indoors, and yet very little training happened. It all started with the shoveling, which I think I mentioned.
I threw out my back. Not Monday, when I shoveled, and not all the way. I knew I had tweaked it, but the overwhelming workload I have, which tended to be heaviest on Mondays, led to me sitting up late in the office chair of doom in my office on Monday night after tweaking it instead of stretching it and resting it like a reasonable person would have. So Tuesday came, I worked and was overtired, but still I managed some modest training, and late Tuesday night, literally out of the blue, a spasm seized my sacrum, and I swore, knowing what it meant. I did enough at the time to prevent a full-blown week in the floor, but my training, obviously, was seriously hampered. So the lesson began.
I circled through the pain on Wednesday, testing each of the animal postures that I know, four of which I literally never practice because no one ever told me to while I have been told to practice the Lion posture relentlessly. I couldn't hold any for long, so 18 turns in each direction of Lion, then Bear, then Dragon, then Pheonix, then Rooster, and then Lion again, which felt like coming home, was my turning practice for the day. Immediately I felt 80% better in my lower back, and I felt encouraged to write a post about "Turning as Medicine." I didn't. I had crap to do to prepare for "the exam" which is looming on the 23rd. I got the book that day which covers the third of the topics for my exam (I know the notice is short... but it's not entirely my fault I'm in this position... I got it a week after I found out it would be on the exam at all!). I figured I'd better look at it, which made me realize I know next to nothing about binomial posets, which is bad, bad, bad for my life this month. I spent the entire night reading about posets in general, but I didn't even look at the binomial type. [If the nerd-word lured you here or scares you, sorry... the post isn't about binomial posets, and yes, those belong to the realm of "math."]
Crap... this is going to take a LOT of time, I thought, and so Wednesday was dedicated nearly entirely to stupid posets, which still elude me today (Saturday... the 11th... which is much closer to the 23rd than it should be for my happiness). I did turn again, using Lion more on the front and back but trucking through all the animals, which hurt way more than I thought they would seeing as they're allegedly "easier." They're not for me! That's to do with familiarity, but this is no time for tangents, as you'll see. [Not math tangents... this isn't about trigonometry either]. I was again encouraged and again too busy to write about "Turning as Medicine."
Thursday came and went much like Wednesday, but the training was even less as the stress was even more and the pain wasn't entirely gone. Then Friday rolled in, and the lesson continued.
My friend and office-mate at school had a tragedy, apparently, Thursday night. I was given no details, but I was begged by the department to cover his class in his absence, which may well be the rest of the semester. I argued with myself and decided it was the good thing to do... and took on the job, effectively tripling, out of nowhere, my teaching load and work duties, and I still don't know what a binomial poset is. If I get through this giant pile of papers he left that needed to be graded, pronto, then I might find out tonight. So... my unmanageable workload became unbelievable, my back still hurts too much to do much in the way of strikes or forms practice, and so I find the impediments of April to be laughing their merry way to wherever they go when they test the abilities of a man near his limits.
So why did I stop to post this? I needed the break, I suppose, and felt I should talk about how, in a small way, I've dealt with some of these impediments.
Standing practice.
I'm not applying the upper-body halves of the postures, but as far as the low, squatting stance to strengthen the legs and enrich the qi, I've put in over thirty minutes while grading those problems that require less attention. I'm even doing it, shaking at this point, as I type this. In fact, I'm going to have to cut this here because I can't stand much longer and am trying to make a point. Back to real life. April, your impediments can suck it!
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